As Seen in Vanity Fair's August 2006 Issue!
As Seen in US News & World Report's September 11 Fifth Anniversary Issue!
As Seen in Time Magazine's September 11, 2006 Issue!
As Seen in Phoenix New Times' August 9, 2007 Issue!

I think Rowley is just "adopted" by the Deniers. Brouillet, Woodson, Bowman and Simpson of course are thorough nutters. Anybody care to guess in (very) round numbers the seat count that 9-11 Denial has after this election?

More History of 9-11 Denial

Veronica Chapman contributes an article going through the early days of the 9-11 Denial movement. Her essential point seems to be that David Ray Griffin and Steven Jones have added nothing to the mix other than disinformation (because they aren't no-planers).

Resume Inflation

I have been making fun of the group "Scholars" for 9/11 "Truth", because despite their claims that 84% of Americans believe in their conspiracy, their group only managed to increase the number of "Full Members" from 76 to 77, since I first counted in May. They have added more new members during that time, but it was offset by all the members quitting, usually accusing the group of academic fraud, or even being part of the conspiracy itself.

Well now it appears they have managed to bump up their ranks a bit, to 93, although this seems to be mostly through ignoring, or at least "loosely interpreting" their own definition of "members (FM), who have or have had academic appointments or the professional equivalent". Here are some examples of these new members.

Anytime they have someone with a qualification involving "engineering" it always becomes as vague as possible. No PhD's or teaching position, just "Irrigation Engineering". What does that mean, he sets up sprinkler systems in Provo?

Gera Rosy (FM) Sociology, taught at University of Texas at El Paso and Metropolitan State College in Denver

Hey, a sociologist with no degree, who taught something once. You never know when that might come in handy!

Kenneth Sowden (FM) Mathematics, West Hills Community College

Yes, that elite West Hills Community College. I think I saw them in US News & World Report ranked right next to Stanford.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Denver Post Treats Jones With Kid Gloves

Jones - who has agreed to retire from BYU at the end of 2006 - said in an interview that his first doubts emerged when he saw a video of the collapse of World Trade Center 7, the 47- story office building that collapsed seven hours after the twin towers.

The collapse took just 6.5 seconds, only a half-second more than the free-fall time a ball bearing would take when dropped from that height. That simply couldn't take account of the normal resistance of steel columns and concrete that should have slowed the collapse by at least a few seconds, he said, but it did fit the model of a controlled demolition.

The physicist said that in more than a year of investigation, he found thermite residue in samples of dust found near ground zero and on one of the steel beams used in a Sept. 11 memorial. Thermite is a compound that, when ignited, produces incredibly high temperatures and is used by the military in incendiary grenades and to cut through steel.

Some government reports have also identified a significant presence of odd substances - including sulfur and zinc - and have noted that there is no obvious explanation for their presence. Jones said sulfur and zinc are part of a typical thermite fingerprint.

The First Rule of Conspiracy Theories

I am starting to think that the first rule of conspiracy theories, is that the conspirators will make the plot as complicated as possible for no reason. I was trying to find some record of last Saturday's Reynolds\Wood speech in Seattle, but have been unlucky so far. Fortunately I came across this bit of recent Morgan Reynolds nuttery for your entertainment (emphasis added):

The technology was publicly available in 2003, so it is possible the military had developed it earlier. Such a plane might have taken off from Stewart Air base in Newburgh, NY, the alleged crossover point of the flight paths of Flights 11 and 175. The soon-to-turn-invisible plane would blend in with a radar inject and become the new radar blip. The aircraft could have been remote controlled to fly by the south tower on its east side or piloted by a human. The plane would time its "switch to invisibility" at the south tower with nearly simultaneous ignition of internal charges in the tower. It would all happen within the space of two seconds, stunning everyone. The spectacular fireball on the east side of the south tower went off too fast to be natural and it did not burn at the so-called impact hole where oxygen and fuel would be abundant, so it was a trick. It performed its role of being a spectacular distraction to further hide the fly by and was an Independence Day terror event on its own. The plane's engines presumably would have been quieted to enhance the realism of the feigned crash, perhaps essentially gliding for moments. It then headed out to sea for destruction if remote controlled or more likely it landed at a secret base because it would have been expensive "one-off" technology.

I love the part where he speculates that the "invisible remote controlled plane" may have been flown out to sea and destroyed. Yeah, that makes sense, rather then just a) blow up the building, or b) crash a plane into the bulding, it is much simpler to use Klingon cloaking technology to fake the crash, then blow up the building, then fly the plane off, only to destroy it later.

Amazingly Area 51 even gets mentioned. Of course if you mention Area 51 theories to 9/11 deniers they will accuse you of ad hominem attacks to distract from the "real issues".

When charged to a certain voltage, these panels undergo color change. Another similar 'skin' is being tested at the top-secret Groom Lake facility at Area 51 in Nevada.

The News of His Death Was Greatly Exaggerated

I guess John Stadtmiller and Jim Fetzer have kissed and made up, because after a 2 week hiatus Uncle Fetzer is back hosting his radio show. I swear, this is the worst misuse of the Beatles since Charles Manson.

In this episode Fetzer interviews Florida Democratic Congressional candidate Bob Bowman, who for a potential politician gives some of the worst interviews. I don't know, I just find something weird about a retired Lieutenant Colonel who still lists medals he got in ROTC on his resume.

I listened to the first hour, which was pretty uneventful, although Fetzer takes a break from lying about 9/11 to lying about Iraq:

I offer Joe Wilson as the perfect illustration. Sent to Niger to determine whether or not there was evidence that Saddam Hussein was obtaining yellowcake for nuclear weapons for that nation he found those claims were based on flimsy forgeries. And yet when he spoke up to inform the nation about that by writing an oped piece in the New York Times, he was punished by having his wife outted. Valerie Plame, who was in charge of what may well have been the most important covert intelligence operation in the American intelligence arsenal, namely a whole network devoted to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons especially in relation to Iraq. I don't get it!

I don't want to get into a whole long argument about the merits of the Iraq War, but first of all, Joe Wilson's short trip did not conclude this, and had nothing to do with the forged documents, which weren't even found until 8 months after his trip. Secondly, Plame was not outted to "punish" Wilson for opposing the Iraq War, in fact the person who initially leaked her name, Richard Armitage, was a vocal opponent of the war. But the question I have is, how could Plame's operation to investigate the proliferation of nuclear weapons to Iraq be "the most important" operation? He just finished telling us Saddam wasn't even trying to obtain nuclear material. Now he is saying that Saddam wanted nuclear weapons? I don't get it!

Sunday, October 29, 2006

The Loosers West Coast Tour

Dylan reports back on their blog from their trip to schmooze with the Hollywood bigshots (remember, this isn't about the fame and money).

Hollywood went great. Buzz Aldrin was next to us at Baggage Claim in LAX, Lindsay Lohan did some terrible karaoke at a Los Angeles club, The Hulk walked past our car and started dancing to Remo Conscious, Charlie Sheen has a beautiful house, and we're going to be in theaters in 2007, no matter what happens.

That's all I can say. Stay tuned.

So I have two questions. How many hookers did Charlie Sheen hire for them, and did Jason Bermas get up the guts to discuss his "no moon landings" theories with Buzz Aldrin?

9-11 Topsites: You Can't Handle the Truth!

Hmmm, I submitted SLC to 9-11 Topsites about a week or so ago, got the code, got a confirmation email. Yet somehow we're not showing up. I wonder why? Could it possibly be because it would be embarrassing to the 9-11 Denial Movement that a Debunking blog is one of the very top 9-11 Websites?

Ahem. It would rank us third right now, at about 90% of the pageviews of the "Scholars" for 9-11 Denial's website, and about half of 9-11 Blogger's. I submitted us as a 9-11 Investigation Site; we'd be the #1 site in that category by about 5-1. The famed Killtown blog? Gets about 170 page views a day according to 9-11 Topsites.

As My Good Buddy Bill Clinton Was Saying

Saying he had been approached many times by the Rockefellers and other members of the CFR elite in an attempt to recruit him, [Aaron] Russo recalled a conversation that would come home to roost on September 11, 2001.

"Here's what I do know first hand - I know that about eleven months to a year before 9/11 ever happened I was talking to my Rockefeller friend (Nicholas Rockefeller) and he said to me 'Aaron there's gonna be an event' and he never told me what the event was going to be - I'm not sure he knew what the event was going to be I don't know that he knew that," said Russo.

Russo related how Rockefeller knew precisely what the event would lead to and which countries would be militarily targeted by the elite.

"He just said there's gonna be an event and out of that event we're gonna invade Afghanistan so we can run pipelines through the Caspian sea, we can go into Iraq to take the oil and establish bases in the middle east and to make the middle east part of the new world order and we're going to go after Venezuela - that's what's going to come out of this event."

After producing a string of films and directing "Rude Awakening." Russo turned to blending radical politics with entertainment. He tried to sell a pilot for a television show called "Aaron Russo's Mad As Hell" in the early 1990s. When he was unsuccessful in selling the controversial program to networks, he began selling the pilot as a video in 1996. In 1994 he tried to start a political party called the Constitution Party. In 1998, however, he ran for the Republican party nomination for governor of the state of Nevada. (He lost.) In 2000, he supported the Libertarian party.

Russo is the director of the new "documentary" Freedom to Fascism. I watched about ten minutes of it on Google the other day; it appears to be one of those nutty anti-tax films, claiming that there is no law that requires us to pay our taxes. Those cunning bastards at the New World Order! I'll watch some more of it if it seems to be catching on among the fruitcakes.

First Wikipedia, Now Google

We already knew Microsoft was the center of the New World Order, but now even Google is involved. Is nobody safe?! From Alex Jones' website:

Steele raised eyebrows when he confirmed from his contacts within the CIA and Google that Google was working in tandem with "the agency," a claim made especially volatile by the fact that Google was recently caught censoring Alex Jones' Terror Storm and has targeted other websites for blackout in the past.

"I think that Google has made a very important strategic mistake in dealing with the secret elements of the U.S. government - that is a huge mistake and I'm hoping they'll work their way out of it and basically cut that relationship off," said the ex-CIA man.

"Google was a little hypocritical when they were refusing to honor a Department of Justice request for information because they were heavily in bed with the Central Intelligence Agency, the office of research and development," said Steele.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

More Barrett Nuttery

This is a fun video, again showing Kevin Barrett trying his hand at lots of humorous voices. This guy's a wannabe standup comic. Get the whole bit about green bits of paper and the red pill and the Matrix.

Pawk the Retawd in the Hawvawd Yawd

Sofia Speaks

And reveals that she really is as big a space cadet as she sounds in 9-11 Mysteries.

So what happened to the people who got on those airplanes and haven’t been seen or heard from since?

First of all, it is important to remember the planes were under-booked. Some were only 20 percent full. There was an effort made to under-book the planes and there are reports that people tried to buy tickets on American Airlines Flight 77 and found the price had tripled that particular day. Efforts were made to discourage people from flying on those flights. There are reports that Flight 93 landed at Cleveland airport. We think there was a masking going on, a classic flim-flam magician trick. We don’t even know if Flight 11 took off from Logan. There is a chance the passengers were bundled onto Flight 175. There are reports that two of the plane’s tail numbers were still in service until recently. This would suggest the planes themselves were active. There is a possibility the planes that struck the towers were not the passenger planes we thought they were but Boeing tankers manufactured for the military.

What about all those cell phone calls passengers were making saying their planes had been hijacked?

You go in an airplane and try to use your cell phone and you won’t succeed. At elevations greater than 4,000 to 8,000 feet you will have no signal. Towers have to hand their signal off to other towers. Get this in your brain: nobody reported their family members had made cell phone calls until Sept. 12—that’s huge! Now, after the fact, we are being told they weren’t cell phone calls but calls from seat back phones. There is a whole technology of digital voice morphing, so those calls might not have been made by real people. Some of the passengers could be fake.

Friday, October 27, 2006

They're Alive! Alive!

No, they're not. This won't convince the CT nutbars, but the BBC takes a look back at the story that gets cited as "evidence" that the hijackers were still alive.

We’ve carried the full report, executive summary and main findings and, as part of the recent fifth anniversary coverage, a detailed guide to what’s known about what happened on the day. But conspiracy theories have persisted. The confusion over names and identities we reported back in 2001 may have arisen because these were common Arabic and Islamic names.

In an effort to make this clearer, we have made one small change to the original story. Under the FBI picture of Waleed al Shehri we have added the words "A man called Waleed Al Shehri..." to make it as clear as possible that there was confusion over the identity. The rest of the story remains as it was in the archive as a record of the situation at the time.

We recently asked the FBI for a statement, and this is, as things stand, the closest thing we have to a definitive view: The FBI is confident that it has positively identified the nineteen hijackers responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Also, the 9/11 investigation was thoroughly reviewed by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States and the House and Senate Joint Inquiry. Neither of these reviews ever raised the issue of doubt about the identity of the nineteen hijackers.

What Is With Kevin Barrett and the Finger Quotes?

Ask Dr. Science

NPR used to have a short humor featurette in the late afternoon called Ask Dr. Science. Produced by Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre, it featured a (straight) question and a very absurd and amusing, pseudo-scientific answer. The piece would close with "Ask Dr Science, he knows more than you do." (Dr Science voice): "I have a master's degree!" "In science!"

Well, that's the way that I feel about this post. The guy claims to have a master's degree in engineering from Stanford, but look at this claim:

Steel frame towers are built very strongly. They need to withstand the pressure of gale-force winds, the violent rocking motion of earthquakes, and the ravages of time. For this reason, they are almost impossible to destroy.

Airplane strikes do not destroy skyscrapers. A bomber strike to the Empire State Building during World War II did not harm that building. The World Trade Center towers were designed to survive a strike by a Boeing 707. The 767 is more massive, so the building was stressed near its design limits. But if a failure had occurred at that moment, it would have been at the point of highest levered stress, near the base of the tower, and the tower would have fallen over like a giant tree in a forest windstorm. That, of course, did not happen.

What in the world is he thinking? Lord knows, the Deniers make a lot of ridiculous claims, but that just might be up there with the Keebler elves and their tree analogy.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Nice You Tube Video of the Collapse Mechanism

I don't have a date for this, but there is a notation that it's from TLC; The Learning Channel? Some choice bits in here, including the structural engineer who headed up the analysis team pointing out the relative lack of fireproofing on the steel trusses. Note the nutbar comments as well.

The Cult of 9-11

Here's a terrific article from our buddies in England on the aspects of 9-11 Denial that verge on cultism.

6) Use of thought-terminating cliches

The 9/11 cult has a rich variety, mostly transatlantic in origin. A 'shill' is anybody they disagree with, who is thereby an implied spook (being an actual spook is no problem as the Machon/Shayler dominance shows). Then there is 'limited hang-out', to describe people who agree on some facts but don't buy the whole package. Webster Tarpley Griffin has a language all his own, involving 'moles', patsies and such like. 'Sheeple' is another derogatory term, used about people who disagree. A favourite phrase is 'Gatekeeper', handily divided into Right and Left Gatekeepers. In the UK, perhaps reflecting a relative lack of sophistication, a characteristic 9/11 cult response to critics is psychiatric-style abuse. Thus, two particularly challenged individuals--Keith Parkin & Tony Gosling pepper their language with references to insanity/asylums/ delusions/lunatics/lunatic rantings/mental illness and so on. All this in an internet exchange where the two originally denied the contents of an encounter outside the 2005 Book Fair which was later conceded, but with no grace. The debate was also insightful for precipitating UK Cultists into the local variant of 'shill'--the accusation critics are working for the spooks.

Our buddy Markyx wrote awhile ago that the 9-11 Denial Movement amounted to a cult (can't locate the posts at JREF right now). Update: Maybe because it wasn't there.

The Great Wikipedia Scandal!

9-11 Denial: So Big That We Can Start Our Own Party

Looks like the 9-11 Deniers are starting to believe their own BS about how big their "movement" is. Check this out:

Is it time to take the next step and start wielding some of the power this movement has accumulated? It is often said that senior citizens wield a considerable amount of political might in the United States. For the most part this is because they have numbers and they get out and vote, reliably and consistantly. While I think their power has somewhat decreased in recent years, there can be no doubt that political candidates make concessions to this power, and even at times go out of their way to mollify them, if for no other reason than through the fear that this voting bloc may come out in strength against them. I feel that the Truth Movement could rival this power and most likely excede it.

As usual, he cites the polls that supposedly indicates everybody's on board with 9-11 Denial:

We certainly have the numbers on our side. Just look at any of the many online polls and you see the numbers... remember the Charlie Sheen poll? How about the 0wnage of the United 93 forums? Hell, check some net traffic reports or data on search terms, 9/11 Truth sites are some of the busiest out there. That's some serious numbers.

But this seems a little curious:

On the main issue; We do NOT ask someone to commit political suicide by going on the record screaming 'Inside Job!' or anything like that.

Eh? Why would that be political suicide? After all, aren't 84% of the people 9-11 Deniers now? Or could it possibly be that even the Resisting Intelligencer realizes that's a bunch of nonsense, and that in actuality the percentage of people who believe in 9-11 Denial is somewhere in the low teens?

Screw Loose Change Special Assignment Correspondent Wanted

This Saturday Judy "Death Star" Wood and Morgan "No Planes" Reynolds are giving a speech in Seattle (Ballard specifically). To my great dismay I am already obligated to be out of town this weekend though. I would like to go, if for nothing else then to get Dr. Wood to autograph a box of Keebler cookies for me.

If there are any Seattle debunkers out there who can go, it would be great to get some non-moonbat coverage of what is sure to be an entertaining evening. In return for some coverage I might even be able to comp you the $10 admission fee from my New World Order slush fund. Bonus points if you dress up in a Darth Vader costume (it is the weekend before Halloween after all) and ask Wood, "What have you done with the plans you stole from the Death Star?"

Taibbi Encore!

Matt Taibbi, whose terrific piece on the 9-11 Deniers in Rolling Stone apparently got them angry, is back with another article on Alternet drawing comparisons to the OKC bombing conspiracy nutbars:

Over a month after I first wrote a column slamming the 9/11 Truth movement, I continue to get hate mail in massive quantities. A group of Truthers even picketed my office, and I'm still picking food particles out of my scarf after an incident in which the movement's house lunatic, a wild-eyed German blogger named Nico Haupt, tried to goad me into slugging him in a West Side diner.

Of course I didn't hit him -- nothing in the world is more ridiculous than two writers fighting in a restaurant. If you're surprised that I would call someone who spit food on my lap a fellow writer, don't be. As I subsequently found out, Haupt is a literary juggernaut, one of the most voluble bloggers on the planet earth. His internet entries read like a MySpace mixture of MTV's Real World meets Che's Congo Diaries, only on meth and in a German accent.

Heheh. I kind of root for Nico, in the same way that I rooted for the New York Mets back in the 1960s. He seems to be the 9-11 Denier that even the Deniers find nutty.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

9-11 Myth & Reality Analysis

A friend of mine who ran a video store once remarked that the only movies that people would watch more than once or twice were the X-rated films.

The paranoid also apparently like their pornography enough to watch it multiple times; about the only "events" the Arizona chapter of 9-11 Denial has are movie marathons. I'm sure they'll be showing 9-11 Myth & Reality.

This movie has nothing new; no claims of nuclear explosions in the basement or Star Wars weapons in the bathtub. Instead we get the usual "questions", delivered in a soporific manner. Griffin cites Hopsicker as proving that Mohammed Atta liked cocaine, alcohol, pork and lap dances, although of course Hopsicker's source for that, Amanda Keller, has come clean and admitted that she wasn't Atta's girlfriend.

The movie consists of two lectures Griffin gave this year. The first one covers nine supposed 9-11 Myths that he "debunks":

1. Our political and military leaders simply would not due such a thing. Griffin highlights the usual talking points on this: Gulf of Tonkin, Operation Northwoods, etc.

2. Our political and military leaders would have had no motive for orchestrating the 9/11 attacks. Again, no surprises here. Griffin claims that there is a common dream among neocons for a "Pax Americana". The PNAC comes in for their usual mention of desiring a "New Pearl Harbor".

3. Such a big operation, involving so many people, could not have been kept secret because someone involved in it would have talked by now. Griffin mentions some government operations that were kept secret, including the Manhattan Project and the War in Indonesia in 1957 which the American government supposedly started and kept secret until 1995.

4. The 9/11 Commission, which has endorsed the official account, was an independent, impartial commission and hence can be believed. Griffin claims there were "serious conflicts of interest for many of the members of the commission, and highlights Phillip Zelikow's supposed conflict since he was "essentially a member of the Bush-Cheney Administration".

5. The Bush Administration provided proof that the attacks were carried out by Al Qaeda terrorists under the direction of Osama bin Laden. Griffin notes that a bag checked through by Atta apparently did not make it on Flight 11 and contained much incriminating evidence including his will. Griffin asks why would Atta have brought along his will on the plane he planned to fly into the World Trade Center. This is a reasonable point. Not so reasonable is Griffin's use of Hopsicker's claims that Atta liked cocaine, alcohol, pork and lap dances. He claims that the Taliban offered to turn Osama over to us if we provided evidence that he was involved in the WTC; considering that they hadn't handed him over when we had proof that he was involved in the embassy bombings in Africa, this is a bit much. We get the usual nonsense about the hijackers not being on the flight manifests, and the claim that Osama was in an American hospital in Dubai.

6. The 9/11 attacks came as a surprise to the Bush Administration. Griffin quotes the FBI Director saying there was no evidence than anyone in the US other than the hijackers knew of the plot. Griffin brings up the put options. Yawn, how many times do these things have to be debunked? Griffin also brings up the nonsense about how Bush should have bolted from the classroom as soon as he heard about the second plane into the towers. I agree that he should not have remained there, but of course Griffin is trying to imply that Bush only stayed there because he "knew" it was safe.

(I'll try to finish up the "myths" in a later post.

Two minor points: Griffin does a poor job of making air quotes with his fingers every time he quotes somebody. This becomes unbelievably annoying after about the 50th time. And second, this crowd looks like it's got plenty of Geritol in the medicine chest:

For those of us accustomed to thinking of 9-11 Deniers as young louts in black tee shirts, this should be a wakeup call.

A Map to the 9/11 Denial Movement

While this is certainly not as visually appealing as the Eric Hufschmid Flowchart O' Death, I tried to put down a visual representation of the schisms, attacks, and backstabs in the 9/11 denial movement. The sad thing is, this is by no means comprehensive.

On the Other Side of the Atlantic

Here's an excellent site devoted to debunking the 9-11 Deniers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Obviously there is a great deal of overlap with the issues we face here, although some of the characters are different. For example, David Shayler and Anne Machon, who had prominent roles in Alex Jones' Terrorstorm come in for a great deal of attention at 9-11 Cult Watch.

Yogi Berra and the "Scholars" for 9/11 "Truth"

The great philosopher Yogi Berra once famously said, referring to a restaurant, "No one goes there nowadays, it's too crowded." In the spirit of this logic Uncle Fetzer, in another one of his his bizarre self-quoting press releases is complaining that Fox News is trying to silence his organization, by having their members on their network all the time and criticizing them:

Has the Fox television broadcasting network become an attack dog to silence critics of the Bush administration? A group of American citizens called Scholars for 9/11 Truth says yes. They charge that commentators on the Fox network, already known for its conservative bias, have maliciously compared the 9/11 scholars to terrorists and suggested that the FBI follow their members 24 hours a day, thereby contradicting the network's motto of being "fair and balanced".

"The Fox News Network has gone to war with Scholars for 9/11 Truth," founder and co-chair James Fetzer said. "FOX has used 'The O'Reilly Factor' and 'Hannity & Colmes' as attack dogs against 9/11 truth-seekers. These broadcasters charge that we have supplied 'material support' for terrorists, which paves the way for us to be classified as 'enemy combatants.' That means that our members can be arrested and held indefinitely with no charges simply for questioning the government. That smacks of unAmericanism."

OK Jim, if they are trying to shut you up, why exactly are they putting you guys on the air all the time? They have had "Scholars" on at least a half dozen times. They haven't had me on a single time! How many times has CNN or MSNBC had you on the air? What about PBS, CBS, NBC, or ABC? It seems to me like Fox News is the last news network you should be criticizing.

Why Kevin Barrett Doesn't Have Tenure

Kevin Barrett is often called a professor, but in fact he is just a lecturer, part-time without tenure of any type. He demonstrates why in this editorial in the University of Wisconsin student newspaper.

First of all, I am just amazed by a "professor" who is supposed to be a specialist on Islam, who, aside from not understanding how to use "sic", doesn't even seem to understand the basic terminology in the field, referring to the usage of the term "Islamist".

Setting aside Carnes’ linguistic brutalities, it sounds like it is Carnes, not me, who wants to politicize what is supposed to be a religious studies class. Substitute Buddhism, Hinduism or Native American religion for Islam in the above paragraphs and you will see how ridiculous Carnes’ idea of what an introduction to a religion is supposed to be: “Buddhicists have been battling over controversies surrounding Buddhistic study: Is Buddhism locked in a clash of civilizations … ?” Or try substituting “Judaism” for “Buddhism” to get a sense of the implicit bigotry that informs Carnes’ outlook on Islam.

Islamists, is in fact a widely accepted term, here is a definition from PBS Frontline, hardly a neo-con source:

Islamist is a term used to identify a Muslim fundamentalist.

If Barrett is not aware of a Muslim fundamentalist movement, then he definitely should not be teaching at a major public university. Comparing this to "Buddhicists", is a particularly specious argument. Is anyone aware of a major international movement by Buddhists using violence to compel others to convert to their religion?

Barrett then goes on to use that famous academic research method, the newspaper opinion poll, and he even distorts that.

Doubting the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 is not a peculiarity of Muslims. A recent New York Times poll showed that only 16 percent of the American people believe the official story, meaning that 84 percent do not.

As we have already shown, this is a deliberate distortion of the poll by the conspiracy theorists.

The best comment on this article is by a student, supposedly from his class:

This isn't really related to Barret's views on 9/11, but...

The Pope's quoting of the Byzantine Emperor was brought up four or five times in class, and it took this many times of discussion before Barret conceded that, in fact, some Muslims reacted violently. Most of the time was spent ridiculing the Pope. This shows where he stands. He'd rather poke fun at the Pope for quoting a man that criticized Islam and Mohammed, than comment on members of his own faith gunning down a nun in Mogadishu, blowing up churches in Palestine, and calling for the death of the Pope throughout the world.

No, I don't think he should be fired for his "views", but he raises serious questions whether he is even qualified to hold the position in the first place. There is no constitutional ammendement protecting your right to be incompetent.

Loosers' Trip to Washington

Dylan, Merc, and I headed for the church. We were told to wait for Father McGraw while he finished up a phone call. We were then invited in to a conference room where we set up the camera to interview him. He gave his account as usual but Merc was careful to phrase the questions to get him to repeat curious statements that he had made in the past. Father McGraw was a Department of Justice attorney for 5 years before he was ordained a priest just a few months before 9/11. He grew up in the Washington DC area. He remembered a plane that crashed into the 14th street bridge when he was a kid and he said his memory associated that with the pentagon crash. Despite all of this he has asserted that he wasnt aware that the big building that he saw got hit by a plane was the Pentagon! He re-asserted this lunacy to us when we asked him point blank. He definitely played the role of simpleton priest very well. Unfortunately his history doesnt jive with this since he was an attorney for the DOJ for 5 years and was only a priest for a few months before 9/11. Father Stephen McGraw is a prime candidate for a deep cover agent. What could possibly be a more cush job that would leave you plenty of time for clandestine covert operations than a priest? After the interview he sent us away with a medallion with the archangel Michael slaying the devil. How curiously fitting especially since he had no reason to know our position on 9/11. He blessed them for us in person. It was more than a bit spooky!

255 Smoking Guns

One of my professors once said that the difference between a scientific theory and a conspiracy theory is that scientific theories have predictable outcomes. A conspiracy theory, on the other hand, can find proof in evidence, no matter which way the evidence goes. The list by our buddy Killtown "250+ 9/11 Smoking Guns" provides the perfect example of this. Some examples:

Spooky Figures Out the Pentagon

A small version of Judy Wood's Star Wars beam weapon was used to knock down the lamp poles and fry the generator and create the hole in the building. Pre-planted explosives did the rest of the damage to the building. Plane parts were pre-planted and also sprinkled from an over-flying plane a la Operation Northwoods.

It's good to see 9-11 investigators using their research skills and building on the solid work by Judy "Keebler Elves" Wood.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Kevin Barrett, Spokesman for the 9-11 Nutters

He's auditioning to be the new Air America host, apparently believing this is the way to fame and fortune. Apparently he missed hearing that Air America is bankrupt. I remember after Les Jamieson's pathetic performance on Ron Weick's show, that some of the Deniers over at 9-11 Blogger actually suggested that Barrett would make a better spokesman for the Denial Movement. Here's his audition tape (mp3 file) on the topic of capital punishment. It sounds like he'd gobbled a handful of amphetamines before the "show", and as if he was under the impression that he was auditioning for Mel Blanc's old job.

Go over and vote for Kevin here. Having this nut on the radio every night would be the best thing that could happen to us Debunkers.

Bermas Radio: Episode II

I managed to get through the second episode of Jason Bermas' radio show on RBN Paranoia Radio. Since it was unbearingly boring I listened while working on my accounting homework to mitigate the effect, so I might have missed something. Not much eventful, the most humorous part was when some old guy called in to complain about his rap music theme song. He said that he would report him to Stadtmiller. Who knows, maybe Bermas will go the way of Fetzer?

Once again Bermas repeated this myth that we are building military bases in Afghanistan to protect the oil pipeline we have running through the country. Remember, Jason is the "researcher". He was also hosting the show over Skype, so he got dropped about a dozen times.

Bermas: So Dylan, I just want to kind of talk to you about yesterday when we had the European division of Al Jazeera over at the house, that was pretty, uh, pretty interesting, wouldn't you say?

Avery: That was pretty interesting, I am sure that Screw Loose Change is probably having a field day with that right now.

Bermas: (laughter) Well...

Avery: Not like I really care what they say, but you know. And we lost Jason Bermas yet again. Yeah, we had Al Jazeera West over at our house yesterday. It was definitely interesting, I expected, I don't mean this the way it might sound, but I didn't expect a bunch of white guys. I mean I didn't know...

Bermas: (laughter) You didn't did you Dylan? I did, because I knew it was going to be...

Avery: Hell man, they were cool Brits. They had a lot of good things to say. They were fans of what we were doing. And they had a lot of good questions, they weren't really asking us about the movie so much as they were asking us about the media mostly. How American media, and the lack of trust in it has contributed to the success of what we are doing. Basically what I told him, is if they did their job we would be out of a job.

Actually having Al Jazeera over at your house is no big deal to me. For God's sake, your radio program is on a network sponsored by neo-Nazi newspapers and ads for anti-chemtrail organic medicines, Al Jazeera would be a step up.

Although one question for you Dylan, while you were talking with the Al Jazeera guys, did you ask them why they don't have all those 9/11 hijackers, who are still alive, on their TV programs? You would think this would be a big story in the Arab world.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

False Brain News

I just started listening to False Flag News from last Friday. Just a few minutes in this cracked me up:

I will once again remind everybody, the Eisenhower Strike Group, with a nuclear submarine, loaded with B-1s and B-52s and minesweepers will be approaching around October 21st, and when I get in I am going to give a very quick intelligence briefing and then I am going to introduce my special guest Alex Jones from infowars.com.

Well I for one can't wait for the intel briefing. Maybe he will explain how they get these on the submarine?

The Paranoid Left Meets the Paranoid Right

This is hilarious. John Stadtmiller is the head honcho at Republic Broadcasting Network, which features such distinguished talk show hosts as Alex Jones, Jason Bermas and (formerly) Jim Fetzer.

Fetzer guested on Stadtmiller's show National Intel Report earlier this week. A caller dialed in and apparently started ragging on Bill and Hillary Clinton--they're Marxists and had people killed and by the way, Hillary's a lesbian. Fetzer is famously liberal and got angry at the caller, insisting that ideas like national healthcare were necessary and good for America, and that the other charges were ridiculous.

But Stadtmiller is a paranoid right-winger, and the talk of this on his own show let alone the RBN Network was absolutely anathema to him. So he apparently had a shouting match with Fetzer after the show was over, which, after an exchange of F-bombs resulted in Fetzer's own show being cancelled. You can listen to Stadmiller's summary of the episode (mp3 file) here.

It reveals something I find interesting about the 9-11 Denial. It combines such oddly diverse groups of people that seemingly have little else in common, and that seem fated to fracture because of their differences.

Fetzer represents the paranoid left, which had its heyday in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but pretty much had disappeared from American life. As to why they disappeared, the answer is that they pretty much moved into the liberal camp, following the rest of the country as it moved to the right.

The paranoid right had its original boom in the 1950s, but by the late 1980s it was pretty much marginalized. Then came the Clinton era. The paranoid right was resurgent, with Mena and Vincent Foster and Waco and Oklahoma City fueling the fire. I suspect that's when Stadtmiller and Jones and a lot of the other RBN hosts began their shows. So they cut their teeth on anti-Clinton conspiracies.

But now the paranoid left is getting active again, and not surprisingly, they have colluded with the right-wingers over 9-11. But inevitably there are tensions between the two groups. We should expect more of the same between the various factions of the 9-11 Denial movement.

Steven Jones Retires

Controversial Physics professor and co-founder of the "Scholars" for 9/11 "Truth" has taken early retirement from BYU.

Professor Steven Jones and Brigham Young University finalized a retirement package Friday, six weeks after the school placed the physicist on paid leave to review his statements and research about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.

"I am electing to retire so that I can spend more time speaking and conducting research of my own choosing," Jones said in a statement released by the university. "I appreciate the wonderful opportunity I have had to teach and serve and do research at BYU for more than 21 years."

Jones and BYU worked on the package for weeks, Jones said in an interview with the Deseret Morning News. The university abandoned its review of his 9/11-related work Friday after the agreement was reached, university spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said.

According to the same article, the "Scholars" have been rallying to try and save his job:

A member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, co-founded by Jones in December 2005, launched a drive to get 10,000 signatures on a petition in support of Jones to send to BYU President Cecil Samuelson. As of Friday afternoon, the petition had 2,924 signatures.

I don't get it, they claim 84% of Americans are on their side, why can they only get 2,924 people to sign their petition?

Friday, October 20, 2006

Dang I Think I Forgot to Link This Earlier

My apologies to Burke; I promised to post about this and forgot. He's trying to organize a mock trial of the US Government for 9-11. This strikes me as a good idea; have each side lay out the evidence. But you can probably guess the problem; so far he hasn't been able to get any of the 9-11 Deniers to take on the job of prosecution.

Amazon's Top "Non-Fiction" Reviewer Hails Tarpley

Which of course raises the question why he's reviewing a work of fiction like Synthetic Terror. If you've got a couple of minutes this afternoon/evening, look at Robert D. Steele's review and click on the "No" button under "Was this review helpful to you?" This shows one of the problems with Amazon's "rate the reviewers" feature; that a 9-11 retard like this guy can be a top 100 reviewer shows something's terribly wrong.

Mind-Numbing Numbers

Grade-One Gadfly returns with a look at the numerology theories presented by the dopes over at the Loose Change forum.

Um, but wait. Actually, if you flip the date upside down, you get 90/11/01. No, no, no, they reply; you drop the zero before the single digit year (i.e. 10/11/6). Oh, OK. But, if that is the case, why don’t we drop the extra zero in the 9/11 date, too (i.e. 9/11/1). Well, then it won’t match up with the “10” representing October in the date of the crash. But . . .

I've often thought that numerology is the nuttiest stuff out there, and Grade-One Gadfly clearly agrees.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Jayhan-Avery Smackdown?

Rather than link to a post over at WingTV, I am presenting an entire post by Victor Thorn about some trouble in Denial Land. (Some typos and misspellings corrected).

Phil "Commander Pod" Jayhan has been officially cited as the number one laughingstock in the 9-11 movement. He has also become known as the biggest mooch and beggar in this movement. Lastly, he's also exhibited quite a bit of kiss *ss fakery, like how he publicly embraces Alex Jones, and then in the next breath bashes him viciously on his little Internet forum (Phil Jayhan Attacks Alex Jones).

But who would have known how extremely JEALOUS the pod-man was? Well, in all honesty, we were quite aware of it because one time before Phil Jayhan made an appearance on WING TV, he called us about half an hour before the show and wanted to know if he could slam Dave von Kleist for (supposedly) stealing all his research on the "pod" and then not rewarding him financially. True to his nature, though, Jayhan chickened-out, and by air-time he had his tail hidden squarely between his legs.

Within this past few days, the green-eyed monster has reared its ugly head once again, for now Jayhan is belly-aching about Dylan Avery not supporting him properly. It's strange, but for some reason Commander Pod feels that the entire world owes him a living. I mean, it's bad enough that the suckers on his forum are still gullible enough to send him money, but why would anyone feel obligated to keep fueling Phil Jayhan's welfare train? Von Kleist and Avery certainly aren't responsible to feed him, nor is anyone else.

Hey Jayhan, grow up and get a job, ya bum, and quit whining to the world. Nobody owes you a damn thing!

Personally, I have stopped promoting Loose change and weaned myself to promoting 911 Mysteries which is much better made and had a higher production value.

I live off of sales, so dylan had me by the short hairs for a while, especially since very disagreement ended with him threatening to not sell me any copies of it whatsoever. [Selah] Think about that!

We did most of his research and he even lived off of donations here from letsroll members! And then what does he do? He opens his own forums, without ever telling me, and siphons off all my best moderators and Admins and takes them unto himself! Talk about a back stabber! I would never imagine trying to siphon of mods and Admins from somone who helped me so much! Yet Dylan has no issues with this and it fits with his ultra selfish style and way of doing thngs! Dylans second nature is to stab those who helped him in the back, and damn the torpedos...

He thinks he is on top of the world, and probably is, for a season! But things have a way of leveling out, and someday Dylan will be broke and meandering, looking for people to help him again, yet, they will be al gone, for good, as he uses people, and then throws them away!

If anyone will remember, his mom published a video preview of his 2nd edition, which left out the pod and the missile. And when I said squat about it, he was quick to say that was a preview, and that the pod and the missile would be in his 2nd movie! How many here remember his false lying words to us? And then his 2nd edition comes out, without this footage, and lo and behild, Dylan the liar makes up some lame excuse why he left it out!

Everytime I bring anything up to this guy on the phone, he threatened to not sell me any DVD's and cut me off from any of the cashflow! Even though he made many promises here, and threads, saying "Promote Loose Change" and I will make donations to this forum.

Those donations never came, He lied. All I got was a few lousy cases of his DVD's and nothing but threats from him not to speak evil of him or else he would cut me off from ALL sales!

He lied to me, He lied to his Mods. He lied to his Admins. He lies to everyone who can help him out, and then after the help given, he treats THEM like sh*t as well!

Screw Dylan and Screw Loose Change! And all that that implies....He is nothing but a lying piece of sh*t!

cheers-phil

And we aren't even worthy of a f*cking link on his website while the stupid ass, piece of sh*t Killtown gets all the traffic! Well, f*ck Dylan and f*ck Killtown and his lying no plane Bullsh*t of which Loose Change is NOW the HOME OF!!!!!

Dylan is drunk with power and money, and doesn't give a crap about anything or anyone but himself! He has forgetten that many people have given up their lives as they knew them to work 911 truth, yet he doesn't give a crap because he has all the money, and comforts, and bills paid through his 1.5 million dollar contract to make his final cut of this movie!

While people like me struggle to make ends meet and pay neccessities, like the phone and electric bills. All of Dylans promises to help me and this forum have come to nought. He has provided a few cases of DVD's free of charge, and 115 dollars in cash donations (made after John Stadtmillers Debut of his movie at the Alamo Steak House)

Dylan has, for the most part, broken every single promise he made to me and this forum. He has not given nearly as much as was given, and when success was granted him, he cut us loose, and abandoned us, even going to the extreme of banning me from being able to post on his forums.

And all that that implies....

cheers-phil jayhan

Dylan forgets those who help him and then screws them over. This is his habit. He has never seen a bridge which he doesn't burn and never seen a bridge which he thinks is beneath him, and all that that implies....

Although Thorn dismisses any notion that Avery owes Jayhan anything, IIRC, Jayhan financed the original version of Loose Change and was even credited as a co-producer on that release.

Keebler Elves on the Death Star?

Judy "Keebler Elves" Wood, who apparently has a lot of time on her hands after being let go from her associate professor position at Clemson University (I can't imagine why they didn't want her teaching there), has come out with a new paper (sort of), titled "The WTC Bathtub and Star Wars Beam Weapons". H/T JREF forum.

It appears to be mostly talking about the bath tub surrounding the WTC complex, which shored up the ground and kept water from seeping in. The claim seems to be that the bathtub should have suffered more damage in the collapse, therefore there must have been some nefarious action at work. I couldn't find where they claimed it (They being Woods and fellow ex "Scholar" Morgan Reynolds, who brings the all important economist angle to this research) but based on the title, presumably this anomaly is caused by some secret Star Wars type death ray. Reynolds is a prominent "no planer" so this would make sense, in a conspiracy theorist type way. This is just an educated guess, since the conclusion is nothing more than a photo of a store selling Levi's. The perpetrators wore Docker's perhaps?

Just when you thought it couldn't get any weirder.

You see, I've turned the moon into what I like to call a "Death Star".

Good Work By Another Blogger

Grade One Gadfly has been doing a solid job of analyzing the 9-11 Deniers reaction to last week's plane crash in New York City.

If you follow any of the 9/11 conspiracy talk, you will note that the discussions frequently involve physics or the other sciences. You’ll be treated to arguments about steel melting points, debris patterns, controlled demolitions, and hole sizes. Frequently there is just enough marginal scientific commentary to make it sound as if they are just “raising questions,” when the real story is that they ignore the available resources and answers in order to keep their conspiratorial ruse afloat.

About Those Serial Numbers

One of the arguments that the Deniers like to use is that supposedly every single part of every single airplane has a serial number that identifies exactly which plane it came from. That is to say that that the planes uses for American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, while essentially identical, would have different serial numbers on each of their parts.

But here's an article from Australian which reveals that this is another one of the Deniers' myths.

An elderly man with a heart condition was shocked when a bolt from a Boeing jet flying overhead plunged through the roof of his Sydney home.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority later confirmed the 10cm bolt came from a Boeing jet either landing or taking off from Sydney airport this morning.

CASA will now try to find out which aircraft the bolt fell from.

CASA officials obtained the serial number from the bolt once firemen arrived at the scene.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Those Who Stand for Nothing

Will fall for just about anything. Today Dylan posts this picture at his blog:

(Click 1-2 times to expand to readable size.)

The poster claims that the recently-signed Military Commissions Bill "could cause you to be labelled an enemy combatant for simply protesting ANY government policy. Questioning the official 9/11 story could cause you to be labelled as a terrorist."

Gee, Dyl, I'm having a hard time finding the part about how enemy combatants are those who protest any government policy. Could you point it out for me?

But that's not the end of the nonsense from this poster. Get this claim:

"The most heinous portion of this bill allows not only for the torture of detainees, but also the torture of their children--including sexual torture."

There are no occurences of the word "children" in the bill. But on the off-chance that another term (like offspring) was employed, I decided to search for "torture". Here's what the bill actually says about torture:

"A statement obtained by use of torture shall not be admissable in a military commission under this chapter except against a person accused of torture as evidence the statement was made."

Page 70:

"Any person subject to this chapter who commits an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person... shall be punished... as a military commission under this chapter may direct."

There are a couple other mentions of torture and sexual abuse in the bill, but all in the context of laying out that they are specifically banned under the law.

Maybe Dylan should send this to the ACLU; although they oppose the law, they appear to have missed the part about it allowing the sexual torture of children:

The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director:

"With his signature, President Bush enacts a law that is both unconstitutional and un-American. This president will be remembered as the one who undercut the hallmark of habeas in the name of the war on terror. Nothing separates America more from our enemies than our commitment to fairness and the rule of law, but the bill signed today is an historic break because it turns Guantánamo Bay and other U.S. facilities into legal no-man's-lands.

"The president can now - with the approval of Congress - indefinitely hold people without charge, take away protections against horrific abuse, put people on trial based on hearsay evidence, authorize trials that can sentence people to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and slam shut the courthouse door for habeas petitions. Nothing could be further from the American values we all hold in our hearts than the Military Commissions Act."

Seriously, how much of a paranoid nutter do you have to be to believe that Congress enacted and President Bush signed a law allowing the sexual torture of children?

The Commissar Vanishes

I got my undergraduate degree in Russian Studies, specializing in 20th Century Soviet history and politics. I actually did my senior thesis on the use of propaganda during the period of collectivization, which gives me an excellent background to talk about the 9/11 "truth" movement.

There is an interesting little coffee table book called "The Commissar Vanishes" that I have (on my coffee table ironically) which is about the Stalinist practice of "disappearing" your enemies. When a political opponent falls out of favor (also known as killed), you simply airbrush his face from the history books, and pretend he never existed.

What does this have to do with 9/11 "truth". Well, this is apparently what happened to the Loose Change forum. Some people spoke out, they were purged, the entire forum was erased, and now it is back, like nothing ever happened. Although now it appears you have to register just to view it.

Loosers Astroturfing?

A few months back, the Loosers took to spamming every internet forum with pitches for people to watch Loose Change. The pitch varied, but it usually went something like this:

"Hi, I'm new to posting on this forum, but I've been lurking for awhile and found the signal to noise ratio here pleasingly high. I was just wondering if any of you had seen the movie Loose Change, which raises disturbing questions about 9-11. I'm not sure I agree with everything in the movie, but it's worth a watch!"

After awhile, the usual response was:

"Read Screw Loose Change and you'll see that the Loose Change guys are retarded."

Well, now they seem to be branching out to creating new blogs. While checking Technorati this morning, I noticed some obvious attempts at viral marketing of Loose Change. Consider the following blogs:

Chain Letter

This 9-11 Chain Letter was sent to me and I am sending it on. It has gone around the world four times at faster than freefall speed.

Did you know that the government actually planned and executed 9-11? All they had to do was have explosives planted in the base of the towers. Then on 9/11 they pretended like four planes were being hijacked when really they just rerouted them to Pennsylvania then flew two military jets into the World Trade Center filled with more explosives and shot down all the witnesses in Flight 93 with an F-15 after blowing up the Pentagon with a cruise missile. It was only the world's most intricate and flawlessly executed plan ever, ever.

Please pass this chain letter on to two friends. Do not break the chain! Dylan Avery passed this chain letter on and within days he was receiving checks for $17.95 for a cruddy movie. Alex Jones passed this chain letter on and his ratings are through the roof. On the other hand, Eric Hufschmid broke the chain and now he's reduced to selling tables. Nice tables, mind you, but still.

Poll Abuse

The 9/11 deniers are back distorting another poll. One example, from Alex Jones site:

This past weekend saw the release of a new opinion poll revealing that 84% of mericans do not believe what the government says about the attacks on 9/11. Whilst this indicates a monumental awakening, it also means that there must now be co-ordinated effort to secure a true independent inquiry, and the subsequent removal from office and punishment of those who have consistently lied about and exploited 9/11 - including the President.

Well now 84% of Americans support them! You would think they could get more than 1000 people for their 9/11 anniversary rallies then...

This is, of course, a gross distortion of what the poll actually says. Here is the actual question (emphasis added):

When it comes to what they knew prior to September 11th, 2001, about possible terrorist attacks against the United States, do you think members of the Bush Administration are telling the truth, are mostly telling the truth but hiding something, or are they mostly lying?

The question is specifically about prior terrorist warnings, not about whether they believe the government about 9/11 in general. So basically what the CTs are saying, is that after 5 years of them telling us that there was no terrorist threat, and the attacks were carried out by the government, 84% of the American public believes that there was a threat of terrorism, and that the administration isn't being completely honest about what they knew about it.

Was It Gore?

Farnsworth looks at the evidence and concludes that Al Gore was behind the 9-11 attacks. Here's another dot: Did you know that Larry Silverstein donated $1,000 to Al Gore's campaign in 2000? Could it be any more obvious?

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Response to Dylan

Over at his blog he asks:

Hey, Screw Loose Change, have you got anything to say to the rescue workers who believe 9/11 was an inside job? It's astounding how quickly people can throw insults and conjecture from behind a monitor, but when it comes to face to face confrontation, these same people back down from any opportunity.

Go to any of the NYC 9/11 Truth meetings. Meet Craig Bartmer, David Miller, Kevin McPadden, Mike McCormick, tell any of those four people to their face that they're "kook Liberal conspiracy nutjobs"

Tell Willie Rodriguez he didn't hear explosions in the basement of the North Tower prior to the plane's impact. Tell Jose Sanchez, his co-worker, that he just imagined the entire thing and was confused.

I live in Phoenix, so going to a NYC 9/11 Truth meeting is not exactly in the cards, although I hope to make it to Ground Zero over the holidays.

As I have said several times, if Dylan and company were dedicated to proving that the government lied about the air quality after 9-11, they might find me on their side. I have not looked into this extensively but I did start a thread over at the JREF forums specifically to request information on this topic and am posting stories on that issue there as I find them. There is ample reason to believe that the air quality was unhealthy, even if you don't believe in the rest of 9-11 Denial. Now, it is also an open question as to what percentage of the first responders would have worked on the pile had the government admitted it was hazardous. I suspect the number would be high.

As for the first responders who believe 9-11 was an inside job, I suspect that's a very small percentage of the total. Dylan mentions four such people. The bit about us calling them "kook liberal conspiracy nutjobs" is a red herring; we never accuse people of being liberals for believing in 9-11 Denial. Kooks and conspiracy nutjobs? Sure. Willie Rodriguez is just plain wrong about his claim of bombs in the basement; why is he the only person to remember this? As the Popular Mechanics editors pointed out the person Willie described with skin hanging off, sounded more like he/she had been hit by a fireball than by an explosion.

Auction for a Good Cause

(This post will be periodically bumped to the top over the next couple weeks--scroll down for newer content).

Our buddies Andrea Shea-King and Mark Vance of CPR are going to have an auction of Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson's books as a fundraiser for SC Eagle, an Afghanistan campaign vet, whose wife has cancer and needs funds for home hospice care. They have three young children and mounting expenses.

The auction will be on ebay starting Thursday night at 10:00 Eastern time. I will update this post with a direct link to the auction. If you'd care to just donate to SC Eagle, go here.

The ADL on 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

In a bit of a follow-up to Pat's post earlier today, the Anti-Defamation League weighs in on the Kevin Barrett controversy:

University of Wisconsin instructor Kevin Barrett's use of 9/11 conspiracy theories and choice of a textbook that equates President George W. Bush with Adolf Hitler and bashes Israel raise serious questions about whether he has crossed the line into political advocacy, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said today.

"While we respect academic freedom, ADL is deeply concerned that the students in Barrett's class are receiving a taxpayer-funded indoctrination into the instructor's personal political views that the U.S. government perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, that America is equivalent to Nazi Germany and that Israel is a racist state," said Lonnie Nasatir, Regional Director of ADL's Upper Midwest office and a University of Wisconsin alumnus. "Students who have signed up for a class purportedly about Islam are being ill-served by this content, which has little to do with that great religion."

Interestingly enough they have come out with a series of short reports on anti-Semites in the 9/11 "truth" movement, including some of our usual suspects:

Some examples of those contributing to the spread of anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracies:

Christopher Bollyn, a writer for the conspiracy-oriented newspaper "American Free Press," a leading source on the far-right for disseminating anti-Semitic propaganda, who has published numerous articles alleging that Jews and/or Israel had foreknowledge of 9/11.

David Duke, the notorious white supremacist and former Klansman, who has repeated anti-Semitic allegations on his Web site about an Israeli "spying ring" in the U.S. that was tracking the 9/11 hijackers' every move.

Malik Zulu Shabazz, leader of the anti-Semitic and racist New Black Panther Party, who has declared that Jews "got their people out" on 9/11.

Arab and Muslim media, which have reiterated conspiracy theories blaming both the U.S. government, as well as Israel and/or Jews for the 9/11 attacks.

Chris Bollyn of course has since been fired. I seriously doubt it was for being anti-Semitic.

Nope, They're Not Anti-Semitic At All

We get the familiar nonsense about the Israeli art students spying on the US DEA, about the Israelis dominating ecstasy production, about the students living in Hollywood, Florida, where Mohammed Atta once lived, etc.

There are plenty of dots for the more retarded members of 9-11 Truth to connect:

September 4, 2001: Israeli Company Moves Out of WTCThe Zim-American Israeli Shipping Co. moves their North American headquarters from the 16th floor of the WTC to Norfolk, Virginia, one week before the 9/11 attacks. The Israeli government owns 49 percent of the company. [ Virginian-Pilot, 9/4/01 ] Zim announced the move and its date six months earlier. [ Virginian-Pilot, 4/3/01 ]

Of course, nobody on the 16th floor died, so why would they move out and create suspicion if they were in on the plot?

Two employees of Odigo, Inc., an Israeli company, receive warnings of an imminent attack in New York City about two hours before the first plane hits the WTC. Odigo, one of the world's largest instant messaging companies, has its headquarters two blocks from the WTC. The Odigo Research and Development offices where the warnings were received are located in Herzliyya, a suburb of Tel Aviv. Israeli security and the FBI were notified immediately after the 9/11 attacks began. The two employees claim not to know who sent the warnings. “Odigo service includes a feature called People Finder that allows users to seek out and contact others based on certain interests or demographics. [Alex] Diamandis [Odigo vice president of sales and marketing] said it was possible that the attack warning was broadcast to other Odigo members, but the company has not received reports of other recipients of the message.” [ Ha'aretz, 9/26/01; Washington Post, 9/27/01 (C) ] Odigo claims the warning did not specifically mention the WTC, but the company refuses to divulge what was specified, claiming, “Providing more details would only lead to more conjecture.” [ Washington Post, 9/28/01 ] Odigo gave the FBI the Internet address of the message's sender so the name of the sender could be found. [Deutsche Presse-Agenteur, 9/26/01 ] Two months later, it is reported that the FBI is still investigating the matter, but there have been no reports since. [Courier Mail, 11/20/01 ]

Unfortunately Jon Gold, who wrote the piece does not include links so you can check his story out. The Odigo story is an old one, and I suspect true enough. But of course, what we are left with is a message that says "There's going to be an attack in New York City!" Why would the bosses in the NWO send that message? Why to an Israeli company? In all probability this is just a prank that happened to come at the wrong time.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Great Comic Book by Our Buddies in the New World Order

Hopefully it will fool those 9-11 Deniers, because it's a very cleverly disguised piece of government propaganda. Notice all the mistakes just in the first few pages:

Page 1: Is a rip-off scene, showing an event that never happens in the movie. Besides, it's completely wrong geographically. We clearly can see that the North Building has already been hit, so the plane is coming in towards the south side of WTC 2, right? So our perspective is from the west. One problem; then the North Building should be closer to us, not the South Building. It's cartoon fakery at its most dishonest; clearly the government inserted this panel (and many others) to fool us!

After a brief sex scene that is not gratuitous at all, and clearly relevant to the plot, we get around to the point of the comic, which is that it is taking place on the morning of 9-11-01.

Page 3-4: As Steve exits the subway, he observes people scattering away in fear. He asks somebody what's wrong, and is told, "Haven't you heard? A plane just hit the World Trade Center!"

But look at panel 5 at the bottom of page 4. How many things are wrong with that panel?

1. There is no spot on the ground in midtown Manhattan where you can see the World Trade Center buildings.

2. Why is there only a fireball from the other tower, and not the smokestack we saw on 9-11?

And then on page 5, the government disinfo really gets thick. In panel 2, we learn that, "Steve saved many lives that day." He is shown guiding people to safety as the south tower collapses.

But... shouldn't Steve have known that the people were not in trouble? Shoudn't he have laughed and said, "Don't worry folks, a steel building has never collapsed from a fire before? Let's go inside the lobby and get a couple of Snapples for the walk home!"

And how about page 10, where Steve lays down a line of obvious bull:

"And I want to know why President Bush was reading stories to school children in Florida for twenty minutes after he learned the second plane hit."

Michael Moore, surely not President Bush's greatest admirer, timed the reading at seven minutes. How hard is it to get something like that right? Or on page 13:

"And what's this sh*t about Mohammed Atta's passport found at the scene?"

Uh, I dunno, Steve, maybe you want to recheck your facts on that. It was Satam al-Suqtami's passport that was found in the rubble. Funny how you diligent investigators all get that wrong.

"And who gave Bush the right to declare war? Only Congress can do that!"

Kevin Barrett Threatens Violence Against Fox News

A couple of months ago Fox News host Bill O'Reilly made the following comment about part-time professor and "Scholar" for 9/11 "Truth" Kevin Barrett:

This guy would have been gone at Boston University, my alma mater, in a heartbeat. The Chancellor there, John Silber, would of--would have--this guy'd be in the Charles River floating down, you know, toward the harbor.

Even though O'Reilly appears to have been saying nothing more than Barrett would have been kicked out if he taught at Boston U, this immediately received an indignant press release from Jim Fetzer:

FOX COMMENTATOR THREATENS 9/11 ACTIVIST

O'Reilly suggests he should be "floating in the river" Fetzer, incredibly, went on to claim that this was somehow a direct threat to Barrett's life:

"When public threats can be made to a citizen's life for expressing his opinions on a controversial topic and neither the government nor the media respond," he observed, "that is a sure sign we are living in a fascist state."

Recently though, while filling in for Fetzer's radio show on RBN "paranoia" radio, Barrett made rather more explicit threats against Fox News:

O'Reilly doesn't like that, and neither does the other guys at Fox News. In fact they're feeling pretty threatened right now and I would be too if I was in their shoes because they're setting themselves up for complicity in high treason and mass murder charges. When this thing hits the fan, the leadership in our nation's corporate media may just end up dangling from the end of a rope.

Somehow I doubt Fetzer is going to issue a press release denouncing him.

More Popular Mechanics

One of the chilling things about 9/11 denial is how blithely its adherents are able to accuse their fellow citizens of complicity in evil. They think nothing of suggesting that Romero would keep silent about an enormous crime, that hundreds of researchers involved in 9/11 investigations were participants in a cover-up, or that journalists from Popular Mechanics, The Nation, the New York Times and hundreds of other publications would willingly hide such a plot. Many critics of Popular Mechanics complained that some of the sources we quoted work for the U.S. government. The assumption—explicitly stated by many—was that anyone connected with the government should be seen as implicated. Point of reference: Not including the U.S. Post Office, the federal government has more than 1.9 million employees.

Those barricades are getting crowded. The documentary Loose Change, a messy grab bag of thinly sourced conspiracy claims, became a campus and Internet sensation in 2005. Conspiracy groups recently began hosting conventions where hundreds of like-minded “skeptics” gather to compare notes. And conspiracy literature has become commonplace at antiwar marches and other political events. Most of those embracing the conspiracist mindset probably believe they are espousing a left-wing view. But dig deep enough in the “9/11 Truth Movement” and you come to a place where left and right collide.

The movie Loose Change, for example, frequently cites the American Free Press (AFP) as a source. According to the watchdog group, Center for Media and Democracy, AFP has its roots in the now defunct Liberty Lobby, a group associated with racism, anti-Semitism, and Holocaust denial. (Its founder,Willis Carto, was once described as “America’s most successful professional anti-Semite and racist.”) The award-winning liberal news site www.alternet.org says “the ability of the right-wing media apparatus to dominate public discourse is at the expense of liberal and progressive values.”

The site’s mission statement concludes: “This is what we are fighting against.” Yet, when the Web site offers a roundup of conspiracy theories, it lists www.rense.com as a source.